Agent Pitch Finalist #31 - Divine

DIVINE
YA Sci-Fi
76,000

Query:

If you’d told seventeen-year-old pickpocket Caddy a week ago she’d scale a sixty-story prison with a rogue orphan, she’d laugh in your face and walk off with you wallet.

But that’s before a sandstorm destroys half the city and the vigilante boy, Twist, drags her to safety in the secret ruins beneath the glass metropolis. Before the Service—the civil police—starts pulling people from the streets in search of a diamond thief. Before the tensions between citizens and Service rise to suffocating heights, and riots flood the city.

All the while, Caddy must fight to keep herself from getting too close to Twist. If there’s anything she’s learned on the streets, it’s to avoid attachment. But when her brother is arrested on false charges, Caddy becomes desperate to save what little family she has left. There’s only one person who can help break him out of prison: Twist. But when trusting the boy means risking her petty-thief status, her family, and her life, she must decide if she’s ready to face the Service head on.

First 150 Words:

Heat presses against me. The orange haze makes the air impossibly dry as I scan the swarm of bodies packed tight in the streets. The dust is high today. Another sandstorm is coming.

Squinting, I try to focus. My fingers itch as silver flashes on my left, my right. I reach and slip a thin chain dangling from a man’s pocket into my bag as I stick to the shade of the massive buildings. In Cidy, there are no skyscrapers. All of the glass buildings penetrate the indigo sea above. To the untrained eye, we’d seem prosperous, peaceful. But based on the masses here, that’s far from the truth.

My head pounds from the cries of barterers, and I run a hand through my hair scanning for redcoats. Today thousands of people will be on the streets to trade what they have for what they need. Meaning Service will be on high alert for thieves.